Late leader of Bergen County pay-to-play reform drive honored by group he led

Paul Eisenman, a forceful advocate for pay-to-play reform, was honored posthumously Thursday evening by Bergen Grassroots, the citizen advocacy group he co-founded.

The group presented Eisenman’s two children, Judy Zander and Jed Eisenman, with its Byron Baer award for his advocacy on behalf of open government.

“Like many of you, I called Paul a friend,” Bergen County Freeholder Maura DeNicola told about 30 people who gathered for the ceremony at the Ethical Culture Society building in Teaneck.

“He was a friend who was tenaciously dedicated to what is most important, but least heralded, in politics, which is doing good,” she added.

Heather Taylor is a spokeswoman for The Citizen’s Campaign, a non-profit that has promoted pay-to-play restrictions statewide. She remembered first meeting Eisenman when her group met with Bergen County officials in 2006 to suggest an ordinance restricting campaign contributions by no-bid contractors doing business with the county.

But while her group was the advocate on the issue, “I’d really say he was the one who was pushing me,” she added. “I miss him dearly.”

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, recalled going to freeholder meetings at a time when she was battling with officials within her own party.

“It wasn’t always easy,” she recalled. “But Paul was never afraid.”

Zander thanked the group for the honor, but said her father would consider their continued work as his greatest reward.

Eisenman, a Cliffside Park resident and former weekly newspaper reporter turned public relations consultant, died at age 85 in March, several months after he fell and broke his hip during a freeholder debate that Bergen Grassroots sponsored last year.

He had helped lead the group as it pushed for tighter pay-to-play restrictions. Their efforts spurred the freeholders to adopt a pay-to-play ordinance in December 2011. The group was unsuccessful, however, earlier this year in its attempt to block revisions to the ordinance that increased the limit on what contractors could contribute to county political committees from $2,500 per election to $5,200. It also relaxed some of the penalties.

Advocates of pay-to-play reform, however, were cheered by the results of the Nov. 5 freeholder election. DeNicola, a Republican who opposed the revision of the pay-to-play ordinance, won reelection.

Democratic Freeholder-elect James Tedesco also vowed during a Bergen Grassroots debate that he would seek to return to restrictions on party contributions to their previous limit of $2,500.

The Byron Baer award is named after the late state legislator from Englewood whose signature legislation was the state’s Open Public Meetings Act, adopted in 1974.

Previous winners of the award include The Record and State Comptroller Matthew Boxer.